WHITE-COLLAR CRIME most often involves a network of people in legitimate occupations assisting one another for profit and covering-up wrong-doing. Individually, this often includes lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, boards of directors, chief executive officers, government regulators, and thrift or banking insiders.

Since 1949 when Edwin H. Sutherland first defined white-collar crime, it has not been a uniquely American phenomenon. Yet, as the United States has been and remains the pre-eminent capitalist economic power, the nation is also the world leader in corporate criminality, as well as in this relatively new study of criminology.